Sound Travels
by Nev Longbottom
Summary: "Oh god. I'm in the Hidden Village of Sound, with more missing nin than you can shake a stick at. I have to get stronger. I have to change the events. I have to defeat the person behind this entire mess, Kaguya, who is... the moon? The only thing left to do was train. This entire world is insane. I have to kill the moon. " An SI fic.
1. Chapter 1

I opened my eyes to see water above me. My lungs were burning. I reached up but there was mesh above me.I tried to move but the space was so small, I hit more metal mesh. The water was pressing all around me. All I could see were bubble streaming as I panicked to get out. I tried to push with my feet but I could feel mesh undeath. I was trapped in a wire cage.

I clawed but the metal didn't give. Red started to streak through the water, distorting the area around me. I panicked. I felt like my entire body was burning, aching, inside and out. The last thing I had remembered was watching Naruto as an earthquake hit. Maybe I was asleep. Maybe I was dead and this was hell.

There was a burning sensation rushing to my neck and suddenly my lungs were able to draw in a breath of air. I breathed in and out as fast as I could to try and stop panicking but I couldn't stop the terror from building up. I was trying to hold in as much air as I could, but there I felt an urge to let it all out, growing until I couldn't hold back anymore.

I screamed.

I forced every inch of strength I had into the scream until I heard a crack and I felt something give in the water as all of it rushed past. I slumped over afterward, exhausted. The drain let me see that I wasn't just in a mesh cage but inside a tank. Outside the tank I could make out a white wall and a couple bystanders but I didn't have enough space to turn my body to either side. There was glass and water all over the floor. Oh. Had I done that?

I shivered. It was cold. The four huge people bystanders slowly edged closer to me. One was writing notes frantically while another looked on. The other two were busy with a video camera, one taking video and the other held a boom mic overhead.

I looked down. I had the body of a child and I was naked. I was twenty six….and in the body of child naked.

I was a child and I was naked in a laboratory, in a mesh cage.

I looked at the broken glass around me and thought, this this can't be a dream. I dug my nail into my hand to check. I was awake. I knew that I had died. That felt true bone deep to my soul but this seemed like a weird version of hell.

A part of me felt like I should scream again. As I felt a rising sense of panic - whatifitshell whatifiminHELL - I took a huge breath, preparing myself to scream in their direction.

One of the camera men noticed immediately and made a symbol with his hands.

I blacked out.


	2. Chapter 2

Over the next few months, I picked up a couple of facts.

One, who ever was running the hell I was in had no scruples.

Two, I was probably not in any hell or purgatory since I still needed to eat, sleep, poop, etcs.

Three, I was definitely a tiny child and it sucked.

I woke up in what looked like a kennel I saw once at an animal shelter. A three by four space with a hole in the ground for a toilet and a padlocked chain link fence instead of a door. If I pressed my face against the fence I could see five more kids in cells to my right, one kid dead ahead, and two kids to my left. Some of the kids cried, some of them screamed, and most of them looked...inhuman.

One of the kids had webbed hands. Another has a series of fins. The most normal looking girl had scales in patches on her skin all over her body.

The first thing I did when I noticed the mutations was run my hands all over my body. I touched everywhere I could reach but I didn't feel any webbing or fins or gills like the girl four cells down. The kids were all kinds of different ages. Some looking maybe 10 or 11. I was either the youngest or next to youngest. The scaled girl looked about my size but it was hard to tell.

I had a collar on. Every time I tried to make a noise, it shocked me. I tried to mime my questions but the boy in the cage across from me was beyond human interaction. He spent most of his time rocking back and forth, and I never managed to get him to make eye contact.

Someone came by hours later in a white lab coat and shoved a bowl of gruel under the cage door. I watched the other kids throw themselves at the gruel and either ate face first or shoveled it into the mouths with their hands. I had to take small bites. Getting things through the tight collar was almost impossible.

On the fourth day someone dragged me out of my cage, I huddled in the corner and refused to move. Rather than get close, they used a cattle prod to taze me.

The tests they ran were pretty much the same. Shove me in a wire cage. Drop me in an aquarium and see what happened when I panicked. The first few times I screamed and broke the glass but after a while, I stopped being terrified of drowning and got the hang of making my neck burn until I could breath. Turns out my new body could pop open gills if I thought I was drowning. With more practice it stopped feeling like a burn and felt more like a stretch. The first time I decided to just sit in the cage and relax, they shot a volt of electricity into the aquarium. I woke up on the ground, with broken glass all around me and bits of broken metal blasted all over the room. The observers who has been in the room were all dead. I got up slowly and picked my way around the broken glass to the door.

Even with my best efforts, I still managed to cut my feet on the floor. I had barely opened the door when I got spotted by security.

Needless to say, I was tazed and put right back in the cage. Over time kids would disappear from the other doors only to be replaced by other children. Eventually, every cell I could see besides mine had been replaced at least twice.

I felt like I was going crazy. What did I do to deserve this? I didn't kick puppies or steal from the homeless. Sure, I was a little mean and yeah, I tended to get carried away defending myself and my friends but, hey, who among us wouldn't get a little sadistic with a muggler?

I sang to myself in my head. Constantly. Everything I could remember: Rap, Blues, Opera, Rock, Jingles from commercials. I made my body act out all my memories, every stupid story I ever read, every movie I ever saw. I was halfway through Goblet of Fire when I heard screaming in the compound. Screams weren't all that unusual but the strange part was this sounded like screams from adults.

I heard the metal door slam open that lead into our unit and I heard a voice arguing. That was strange. Normally the scientists were careful not to speak in front of us in the kennels. They'd only the labs. It made us crazy. I thought I was the only one getting this treatment until I heard a couple of the other caged kids discussing it after lights out

If the kids were heard speaking, we were tazed. I had the shock collar but I still mime. It helped me learn the language. Mostly the other children were crying out for parents or sharing stories if they were new. Most of them seemed to be snatched from the surrounding villages. From what they said, it seemed like we were near the sea side or at least, the scientists were snatching kids from the seaside and turning them into monsters. Those that talked made it pretty clear that they had been perfectly normal before they woke in here. Not everyone could survive the changes. One of the girls poisoned herself trying to pull out her new quills.

Other than my past life, I couldn't remember anything from this life. All I knew about myself was that I had the body of a toddler, with skin pale enough to pass for eggshell or a very sickly creme, and a thick, filthy tangle of black hair. Also I probably had Reynards syndrome because my hands were slight blue.

The whoever was speaking didn't even bother to lower his voice. "Now, I know you have your doubts about this project, but I think you should take a look at our best test subject." A second voice made a dismissive noise. "I don't have the time for this. You've already let one of them get free. The security is terrible." I raised an eyebrow. Someone had escaped? Good for them.

I pressed my face against the fence. My collar made a soft click against the metal. Two men rounded the corner. The shorter one with gray hair was familiar. I saw him duck into the experiment rooms fairly often review their results. Usually after the scientists finished their torture sessions, sometimes during. He always smiled whenever he looked at me and he always made the kindest expressions when I was bleeding. I prayed for his kidneys to rupture every night.

The second man was tall, with black hair and what looked like purple eyeliner around his snake eyes - yellow with the slitted pupils. He wore a long dark kimono with mesh underneath and he had a bored expression..

I tilted my head and the motion made another soft click against the fence.

The second man turned to look at me and he froze. His eyes widened.

"This is experiment code named Wani," He gestured at me and made one of his slow, calculated smiles. "As you can see, we've managed to use gene splicing to stabilize the original donor DNA you gave us. This was our first viable candidate The genetic components are exactly as you described - perfect for the goal of underwater shinobi. This is the oldest living test tube grown specimen in our experiments. The previous attempts destabilized and died from chronic insomnia followed by systemic organ failure. However, the sample did not graft well with our embryonic cloning techniques so we used your DNA to ground the effects you requested. I thought having your own child used as a hostage would be a good incentive to increase our funding." He had slowly shifted into an expression of triumph during his speech, every inch of him smug with arrogance.

The second man turned to the first, studying him with a careful blank expression before moving so fast his body became a blur. One second, the first man was standing. The second, he was lying on the floor in three pieces and the second man was moving towards my cell. The blood was just suddenly everywhere, like I had gone from looking at one picture to another. My face felt warm and wet. It took me a moment to understand I was covered in the first man's blood and the second man was still walking towards me.

I backed away as quickly as I could. His sword cut right through the metal like it was air. He stood in the opening, sword drawn. He looked like a pirate. I was going to die. Again. And probably reincarnated somewhere WORSE.

At least if I died, I would die with dignity. I crossed my arms. I looked him right in the eyes and tried irritated as if my murder was going to be an inconvenience.

He laughed.

The other caged children were screaming in the background but like hell was I going to spend my last second alive cowering against a murderer with a sword.

"Of all the ways to find you."

Wait, what?

He sheathed his sword and held out his hand, bending neatly at the waist to reach me. "Come along, child. We are leaving this place."

I reached out to take his hand.

He yanked my arm.

I stumbled forward and in the motion, he reached out with both hands and reached for my collar. I felt a horrible clench around my neck following by a loud CRACK. I watched the two pieces fall to the ground and I opened my mouth to try and say my first words.

"Thank you?" I could hear the hesitation in my voice. It was a rasp, higher than my old life and hoarse from disuse. My hands reached up to touch the space where the collar had rested. The skin felt clammy.

The man laughed again, a soft sound that softened his severe features.

I raised my hands up in the air and made a grasping motion.

He gave me another amused look and lifted me over one of his hips. We walked out of the kennel, and passed through the complex. Something about being carried by this stranger made me feel safe and incredibly terrified. On one hand, he was taking me away from the worst nightmare of my lives. On the other hand, he cut a man into three chunks and gave zero fucks about the situation.

As we walked through, I watched a handful of other men, dashing through the complex and cutting down the scientists. Eventually, when we reached a part of the building no one had been through before, one of the men stopped in front of us. He was covered in a spatter of blood and he smelled like he was splattered with other fluids as well.

"We've successfully dispatched the armed guard and the first level of - Holy shit, Orochimaru-sama, is that a kid?"

I looked at the guy who had spoken. Black pants, back shirt, a headband with a metal plate and a single musical note? Oh god, I felt faint. That looks like a Sound shinobi. From Naruto. A sound shinobi from the fictional anime Naruto. I've just been saved by Orochimaru.

I buried my face in the space between neck and his hair. I was doomed. Orochimaru was a baby experimenting creep of creeps. He was such a douchebag, even Sasori of the Sand thought he was a dick. I was doomed. I was escaping prison only to be kidnapped by the anime version of Hydra. Oh fuck.

Orochimaru's voice was cold when he replied. "It appears Amachi thought I would approve of his decision to grow a child made with my genetic material to stabilize the underwater soldier project. Take this to the base camp and clean the filth off her. I want to personally collect this research before we restructure this compound."

Orochimaru passed me over to the Sound Shinobi. "Send more ninja to collect the other experiments. After all-" He smirked. "Every village needs its genin."

The guy he passed me off to gave him a skeptical look but he took me through the corridors and outside of a wide entrance way. The sun was shining over the water. I couldn't tell if the sun was rising or setting, but I could see the ocean breaking over a white beach to the left or a low, white cement compound. There were at least five other ninja standing guard outside the compound. There were explosions coming from inside. Shouting and yelling as well. The guys carrying me stopped in front of two older men. One with dark green hair and a scowl, the other with feathers growing out of his hair.

The feathered man took one look at me and gave the shinobi holding me an incredulous look. "You are not keeping that child!" He grabbed me under my arms and put me down on the sand. I was starting to feel like a hot potato. "No, Daisuke. No." He repeated again, scolding his the way you would scold a misbehaving puppy.

The guys holding me - Daisuke - rolled his eyes. "I am not that bad."

The scowling guy murmured, "Yes, yes you are. This is the fifth mission where I've found you making off with a baby."

The three of them looked at me. I waved.

"Otokage's orders, Taro. We're supposed to clean her up and then fetch the other experiments from inside. I think they're all kids. Orochimaru-sama said something about needing genin."

Lying liar. He told Daisuke to clean me up. Not Daisuke's team. I crossed my arms. This sneaky bastard was gonna foist me off on someone else. Pretty smart move.

The scowling guy looked horrified. He ran his hands through his hair, tugging at his feathers and dreads. "I did not leave my village to adopt a bunch of baby chicks. Do you know how many?"

Daisuke shrugged. "I don't even know how I'm supposed to clean this kid. Kaito, you're from Hidden Mist. You know any water jutsu?"

Sure enough, a little creativity with an over vigorous mist jutsu and some pretty uncomfortable scrubbing did the job. I felt clean for the first time since, well, death. Taro gave me the shirt off his back when I started to shiver. Whatever the Sound shinobi were doing in there, it was taking a while.

For lack of anything else to do, I pulled out some of the beach grass and started braiding it into a long strip. When it reached long enough I tied it around my waist and finally let myself think.

I had been trying my best not to think of anything at all for weeks. I thought my new life was going to be a short bleak life followed by who knows what. Now that I had been freed, I was probably going to wind up in some kind of horrible experimental cell like Suigestu or something.

There was no way I could try and change the future to save people. Not when I was in Sound. Even if Orochimaru kept me around and made me a Sound genin, I would just die during the invasion of Konoha. If I tried to defect, the other villages would kill me or torture me for information. I still had to try and save the world. After all, I thought hysterically, I'm one of the idiots living in it.

My only chance was...that creepy scientist guy- the one Orochimaru killed - made it sound like I was some kind of designer test tube baby made from his DNA. He probably wouldn't kill his own kid. Maybe. Hopefully.

If I could stay alive then I could use my position to take over Otogakure when Sasuke kills him. As Otokage I would definitely be in a better position to help to stop Madara and all the other horrible things that take place in this world so they never, ever, ever have to happen to me.

Orochimaru may have the emotional growth of a bag of cats but, from what I can remember from the anime, he only really became a bag of cats after the devastation of his parents deaths. He did say something about looking for me so...

I sighed. This was the worst life plan I had ever thought of. The actual worst.

I tied my grass belt around my waist, folding the extra material in front to mimic the kimono that Orochimaru had been wearing. Taro and Daisuke had left to fetch the other kids from inside the compound. Kaito was the one left to watch over me while they finished ransacking the place.

I reached over to the cloth around his knee and gave a firm tug.

"What," Kaito snapped, eyes still watching out over the tree line.

I tugged again and waited until Kaito looked down. "I am Wani, child of Orochimaru and princess of Sound." I wanted to say heir but I didnt know that word. I tried to speak with the same gravitas Orochimaru. It came out pretty weak but luckily, the rasp my voice made mimicked Orochimaru's accent close enough that Kaito looked disturbed. I held out my hand. "I need feed."

Kaito gave me a slow appraising look before looking even more disturbed than before. "You really shouldn't tell people that. That can't be true.

I shrugged and made grasping motions with my hands.

"Is a ration bar okay, Otohime?" The title came out pretty sarcastic but I'd take whatever I could get.

I nodded. Kaito pulled a ration bar out of his back pocket and handed it over before going back to watching the horizon for any attackers.

It was at least another hour for Taro and Daisuke to come back with another nine kids between them. The other kids were also outfitted in what looked like bits and pieces of the scientists clothing.

I made sure to stand separately from them and stayed close to Kaito. He did not waste any time in telling the other shinobi what I told him, rolling his eyes as he complained about the nerve of that little shit. Daisuke looked delighted while Taro looked like he was going to chase down Orochimaru and give him the same speech he gave Daisuke.

"We can't have a princess of Sound. That's not how Hidden Village system works." Taro snapped.

I thought of all the Tsunade's childhood and I laughed. It came out as the same soft ku ku ku sound Orochimaru made. The three shinobi cringed away from me. I rolled with it. "One day Sound is mine." I tried to make my tone sound as serious as possible to try and back my claim. Also to be an asshole. Serious kids are creepy as fuck and I wanted to mess with them

Kaito stared, "That's just messed up."

I held out the wrapper of the ration bar. "Trash."

The three of them looked at each other until Taro rolled his eyes and snatched it, slipping the wrapper in a back pocket. "She's the size of a garden snake."

"So was Orochimaru-sama once," Daisuke said dubiously.

A few minutes later half dozen ninja wearing sound headbands came out of the building with Orochimaru in the center. "Back to the central base. Everyone takes one or two of the…" His gaze swept over the children, pausing to linger on me. "...pre-genin. Remember, face masks until we leave Wave."

I walked right over to Orochimaru and held out my arms again Orochimaru clicked his tongue once and picked me up, settling me over his left hip. I was careful to wrap my arm around his neck in a soft hug. He felt warm with the cold sea air blowing.

The other ninja picked out the children from the crowd. Daisuke picked up two and seemed to be reaching for a third before Taro lightly kicked his ankle.

Once the last child was settled, there must have been some kind of signal given and I couldn't even see what it was. We flew through the trees. I could feel the wind pressing me against Orochimaru and the trees whipping past at a speed to quickly I could barely keep track. I closed my eyes and felt myself slowly doze off.


	3. Chapter 3

A/N: This chapter originally had formatting issues. Hopefully, I fixed them. I'm really sorry about that.

I woke up under a light fluffy silk comforter on a huge futon sunk into the ground. There was a huge weight pinning me down. I lifted my head up to look. There was a huge white snake resting it's head on my stomach. It gave me an unimpressed look and said a feminine voice, "Orochimaru-chan, your neonate is awake."

I heard a groan in my right ear. I jerked away when I realized the grown came from Orochimaru. He was also in bed.

Orochimaru started to push himself up from when he was sleeping and then he just stopped, flopping himself back into his pillow face down. "No."

"Orochi-chan." The snake slid over my stomach and nudged him in the armpit with her snout. "You have to feed nestlings."

Orochimaru turned his back to both of us and mumbled, "Summoning jutsu." A puff of smoke appeared. I wiggled out from underneath the heavy snake as much as I could so I could get a better look.

A small grey snake appeared in a puff of smoke on the wood floor beside the sunken bed. It flicked it's tongue in the air twice, then quickly uncoiled.

"Hayai, take the child to get food. You know the compound." Orochimaru glanced over his shoulder towards the big white snake. "Are you happy, Hahahebi? Can I sleep now?"

She flicked her tongue over the air. "Very." She lifted her coils enough so I could wiggle my legs out from underneath her and climb out of bed.

Once I stood up I could see she was huge. She coils filled every bit of space around where Orochimaru and I were sleeping, and even then she had coils sitting on coils. Hahahebi could have swallowed me the way an anaconda could swallow a mouse.

Hayai lifted its head a couple inches off the ground. "Follow me please." He flicked his tongue in the air and moved up to the only door. Seals along the rim glowed bright blue, causing the door to slide back into the frame.

Orochimaru had sliding door. He had a sliding door in his bedroom. Who does that?

The next room was a large library with luxurious armchairs for sinking in and panels covered in glowing blue seals that were just bright enough to make out the next series of walls. There were a couple more doorways that looked like the sliding door we just passed through and Hayai brought me through one that opened into a huge, brightly lit laboratory.

The ceiling was covered in fluorescent lights that illuminated the room. Each station had a scientist tinkering with different chemicals and bottlers. Glass flasks and bunsen burners were everywhere. Huge tanks lined the walls, filled with different things. Some easily identified as people attached to life support tube and other tanks had mystery chunks in them. One of the scientists gave me a strange look but for the most part, everyone ignored me.

"Hayai, could we go find Taro? Or Daisuke?"

The snake quickly circled back and climbed up my leg to coil around my shoulder. "Those aren't mission parameters." He said, sounding like a sulky young boy. "Now you have to carry me. Go straight."

We went through the door to a wide room with a dozen different hallways and stair cases leading left, right, some of them were even vertical hatches heading straight up with no staircases or anything. There were ninja walking on the walls and the ceilings while civilians walked on the ground. The walls were all the same grey-blue industrial concrete color, but the people wore bright flashy colors to make up for it. Everyone walked quickly, sometimes rolling huge machines or even livestock in different directions.

"Woah," I mumbled.

Hayai's scales constricted on my shoulder. "There are more people than I remember," Hayai murmured.

One of the shinobi on the ceiling flipped down, landing in front of me without making any sound at all. His bright blue hair puffed out in every direction. He looked unimpressed. "Why aren't you at the Aviary? Children aren't allowed on this level."

"That not our mission!" Hayai protested, his voice squeaking as he said it.

The blue-haired shinobi struggled to hold back a laugh. "Well then, ninja-chan, what is the mission?"

Hayai shifted his coils to wrap his tail around the back of my neck. He was small enough that he couldn't even complete one circle. "Food," he mumbled.

"What was that?" The shinobi leaned in a little.

Time to nut up or shut up. I crossed my arms, straightened my back and raised my chin as high as I could. "I am on mission for Orochimaru for food. You assist me."

The shinobi actually laughed at this. "I will huh?"

I deflated. "Yes, please. I woke up. I'm Wani, what's your name?"

"Deki. Let's get you something to eat then."

The ninja picked me up and tucked me under his arm. Hayai hissed angrily making snapping bites near Deki's face that Deki ignored completely.

"I'm sorry," Hayai mumbled in my ear. "My poison sacs haven't come in yet."

Oh my god, tiny snake, murder is not the answer. Not that I had the vocabulary to say that. I settled for whispering, "It's okay."

Deki jumped straight up at the ceiling and managed to stay there by touching it with his bare hand. One hand. Holy shit, chakra was AMAZING. He pulled himself around until his feet were sticking to the ceiling and took off, taking one of the tunnels shooting straight up.

I closed my eyes and tried not to barf or think about how if Deki let go of my for a second, I would plummet to my other death. Deki was moving at a pretty high speed and I put my hands over Hayai's little body to make sure he wouldn't fly off.

When the wind stopped moving, I opened my eyes cautiously. We were right side up again and walking through what looked like a small indoor mall. There were a dozen different stores filled with ninja gear, food, clothes, toiletries, a music shop, and where we were heading was a staircase that had a kanji written on the wall with an arrow pointing up.

The other stores also has kanji and hiragana characters on their windows and doors. I was officially illiterate. Great.

He brought me up the last flight of stairs and pushed open a heavy wooden door into a wide room with a huge gentle sloping wall of glass. The view from the window was spectacular.

It was a rice paddy field, with the long stalks of rice swaying in the wind as the wild birds swam through the water. More birds flew over heard, fluttering from tree to tree. The wood panels between the glass were covered in delicate kanji seals, glowing a soft blue color. The room was pretty big, big enough to house forty or so kids, running wild with dozens of toys ranging from wooden senbon and kunai all the way down to plush teddy bears hanging from a soft spinning mobiles for the tiny babies.

I tugged at the neckline of my borrowed shirt, very aware of the fact I was wearing someone else's shirt and a grass belt. I looked around nervously. I had never been good with kids even when I was a kid. I was an only child and I spent most of my time reading and hanging out with other single children who were also socially maladjusted. Even when I was a teenager, I took classes way ahead of my peer group. Don't get me wrong, I'm no Uchiha Itachi but I was definitely a little asshole who was a dick to other kids because they couldn't keep up.

Kakashi. I was like Kakashi.

I felt myself shrink back slightly when I felt a kid bump into me. "Keep your hands off me," I snarled. Hayai bared his fangs and bit in the empty air over the kid's face.

The carroty ginger kid leaned back and squinted at my face. "Wani? You can talk?"

I blinked and studied his face. He had bright orange hair that grew in three part mohawk. It was one of the boys from the laboratory. He had normal hair when he first name in, but after whatever medical experiment they did on him, the others took to calling him three fish fins. Literally.

"Oh! Hey! Experiment Sanhire. What happened to everyone? Are you guys okay?" There was something about being held captive in a nightmarish compound that formed bonds.

"My name is really Jiroubou." He put one of his hands on the back on his neck. "Those ninjas that saved us said my family was dead. They brought us back to this village and gave us clothes and beds. Everyone's family is dead."

Whoa. Dark.

I reached over and hugged him. "It's going to get better."

"Hey," I heard a familiar voice above me. All these tall people are getting really annoying. God. I hated being small again.

And then I saw that beautiful stupid face.

"Daisuke!" I shrieked and threw my arm around his leg. "Daisuke I'm so happy I found you. Deki took me here instead of getting food!"

Daisuke put one of his hands down on my hair and ruffled it.

Deki gave me a smug smile. I hated those smiles. Those were the ones adults always made around kids when they talked about the Santa or the Easter Bunny. "Yes. I found this little girl wandering the lowest level on a," Here he did those infuriating quotation marks with his fingers, "...'mission from the Otokage.' You've got to keep a better eye on the pre-genin if you're letting them sneak all the way down to the Otokage's level."

Daisuke paled and gave Deki an appalled look. "Didn't you hear about the raiding missing in Wave?"

Deki nodded. "Yeah, the large scale mission to shut down one of the labs that ended with bringing back all the viable experiments."

"We shut down the lab because the scientist in charge used made a child using Otokage's blood. That's the kid."

Deki went completely still. "She was on the same floor as his living quarters…."

I rolled my eyes. "I'm princess. Look. Hayai. " I pointed at the Summons.

He hissed his agreement and climbed up the side of my neck to rest his head over my ear. Deki paled a little.

"Want udon. A goat. Better this," I added, tugging at my shirt. I gave them my best imperious look.

"And a mouse," Hayai added.

"And a mouse," I added, looking directly into Deki's eyes. "Now please."

Daisuke shooed Deki toward the door. "If he comes looking for her, he'll check here. Get the Aviary's rations and meet us back here. He would have brought her to the Aviary eventually anyway. Go."

I watched Deki leave with the small bitter satisfaction of a very hungry child. My stomach rumbled loudly. "Please snack time."

Daisuke took that as his cue to go disappear through one of the other rooms

I tugged on Jiroubou's arm and asked him to show me where the others were. Well. As close to it as I could manage with my vocabulary any way.

One of the attached rooms was full of bunk beds and a even a few cribs crammed side by side. Inside the walls were covered in brightly colored doodles and splashes of paint. One wall was covered in cubby holes full of all kind of linens, pillows, clothes, cuddly plushies and small softly glowing rocks. Most of the mattresses were bare but there was a group of kids huddled on a pair of top bunks in the corners.

"Hey Fatty! Report." The girl who shouted that leaned over the edge of the bed far enough that one of the long haired blond twins grabbed her overalls from the back.

"Stop calling me that, Tayuya." Jiroubou whined.

Wait. Tayuya? Jiroubou? I looked over to the other kids. Two platinum blonds. One annoyed brunette boy. These were the Sound Four from the anime! These were the kids that picked up Sasuke from Konoha and ...they died.

The boy who must have been Kidomaru started to pick his nose. He was going to die.

I needed to sit down for a minute.

Jirourbou dragged me over to the ladder and pushed me at it. I climbed up and curled up in the middle of the mattress.

One of the twins, Sakon or Ukon, poked me in the face. "Hey. Hey. Hey. You were that kid they dragged off."

These kids were practically babies. The oldest was maybe six and the youngest couldn't have been more than four. They were growing to be pushed into becoming jounin as teenagers and then they were going to die because of some evil snake guy desperate to steal someone's body so he can live three more years.

I couldn't let that happen. I may not have the ability to save the world but I could bust my ass to save these kids from dying for something so stupid.

"Yeah. I'm Wani." I poked at the edge of the mattress. The springs creaked and it seemed like it had gone at least five owners before it showed up here. "What happened to you?"

"Oh my god," Sakon or Ukon said, waving his arms wildly. "So like, after that ninja dude dragged you off all these ninja guys showed up and went woosh and bumphf and the doors were smashed to bit by this super cool earth jutsu! So then they pick us up and we were like flying! In the trees! And the branches were like crack crack crack and Kidoumaru-kun nearly lost an eye!"

Kidoumaru did have a piece of gauze taped to the left side of his eye that looked really impressive.

"Shut up, Sakon," Tayuya groaned and covered her eyes with her hands. "One of the ninjas said we could stay here if we want to be ninjas."

"We should stick together," Jiroubou looked us in the eye, one after the other. "We got through that place together."

"No one got me through that place but me," snapped Tayuya. She started to say something else but then deflated a little. "But I guess that idea's not totally stupid. Or whatever."

We stayed up there sharing stupid details like Jiroubou's fear of birds, Kidoumaru's love of spiders, Tayuya's family's music shop, and the twin's favorite games. I spent most of it picking at my shirt and trying not to say anything. What do you even say to traumatized kids in this situation?

Daisuke came looking for us eventually for food. They brought us to another adjoining room in the Aviary where a couple other people were handing out bowls of food from a giant pot. We had rice in some kind of sauce thing and a mess of veggies. It could have been boiled tofu and i still would have been wild to see it. Deki showed up before I finished the bowl.

"I have to go," I mumbled, standing up from the corner where we all had huddled.

They gave me a couple half hearted waves. Jiroubou grabbed my bowl and helped himself to the left overs.

Deki didn't have a goat but he did take me back to the the entrance to Orochimaru's quarters where there was a goat waiting. The seal door opened wide enough to let me go in with the snake. When Deki tried to follow, the seals made a grid of bright blue lightning

I dragged the goat back to the room where i had woken up. Hahahebi was there but Orochimaru was gone. The goat refused to go any farther than the scroll library.

"I tried to bring you a goat but he doesn't want to come in here."

The large snake slowly moved off the bed and in the direction. "Thank you nestling. That's very kind of you."

"Hayai," she added in a stern tone "You were supposed to have taken her to the food stores. Orochimaru-chan has thought her missing for an hour. Dismiss yourself. You are disgraced. "

The little weight over my ear and around my neck disappeared in a small cloud of smoke.

"Hey!"

Hahahebi used her tail to push me towards a folding screen in the corner of the room. "Get dressed. I will notify Orochimaru-chan of your whereabouts."

She surged out of the room. The goat bleated unhappily from the other room.

I didn't have the heart to protest. If I had to admit it to myself, something had bent inside me, if not broken during my time in captivity. Even knowing that I should run as fast as possible towards Konoha, I was so scared and I wanted to cling to the man who had saved me.

The folding screen was painted with a delicate landscape of trees and birds. Behind it was an open door frame leading to a walk in closet where carefully wrapped hakama and kimono filled one corner, and hanging on various mannequins were variations of Orochimaru's outfits. Even his Akatsuki Cape was carefully hung around one headless wooden mannequin with a pile of rolled up cloth on a shelf above.

In a corner of the room was a re-appropriated small metal drying rack. The kind used for damp paper or ceramic. On the first level there were three small white robes, a mesh shirt tunic,tiny shorts, underwear, and tabi socks. Or maybe they were yukata. Or kimono? I'm pretty clueless about most of the stuff from the show and to be honest, none of it looked familiar.

Oh shit. Now I recognized it.

This was the exact outfit Orochimaru used to wear as a child. He was going to dress me as a tiny chibi him. I let out a small squeak because it had to be the most demented thing I ever heard of. Who takes tiny children for medical experiments and dresses their own like tiny versions of themselves?

I got dressed. It took a bit to figure out how to tie things but once I figured it out it felt weirdly comfortable. The mesh was skin tight but the kimono thing was loose enough to cover up the exposed feeling I got in skin tight clothes.

I took a second look at the Akatsuki robe. i'd always wondered what they felt like. Fuck

It no regrets. I tugged the cape off the manikin and pulled it on over my new clothes.

After getting dressed I went poking around in his evil lair. The main room with the glowing kanji had lots of books and scrolls tucked into bookcases and into the cubby shelving along the back. I opened one of the scrolls to see if I could make sense of it.

Nope. Definitely illiterate.

I opened the books until i found an illustrated anatomy book. At least i could learn the symbols for different bits.

A few minutes later I saw a blur out of the corner of my eye and then the blur hit me.

"Oomph!" I was being squeezed into the tightest hug I have ever had in my lives.

"Mother, I thought I lost you again," Someone whispered and it took me a moment to realize that it was Orochimaru.

Did he just-?

I felt myself go cold. I couldn't- i couldn't pretend to be his- What the fuck

All the stress of the day and the moment hit me all at once and I burst into tears. "I'm me," I whispered.

"I'm not-I'm me." I couldn't help myself. I started shaking.

Orochimaru pulled back far enough for me to see his face. He was serious, not a hint of the smirking arrogance that was hiding in his features. I tried to look away but he gently tilted my chin up until I had to look him in the eyes.

"There is no doubt in my mind that you are the reincarnation of my mother. I have looked so far for you. I promise to keep you safe in this life. No one will ever take you from me again." He had his arms around me again squeezing me tight.

He was a killer. He sent hundreds of his own citizens into a pointless war and slaughtered babies to satisfy his own vendetta. He one of the most dangerous men in this world and he was swearing to keep me safe.

I squeezed his back just as hard and sniffled into his collar. "You are good. I can be good child."

We sat there holding each other until Orochimaru picked me off the ground.

"I need to put a tracking seal on you," He murmured.

I pressed my face into the crook of his neck and tried to pull back my sobs. There was no way I was going to let him put any kind of seal on me. "I don't want it."

"You don't have a choice"

I tried to wriggle out of his grasp. "No thank you. I'm good."

We stepped into the main lab space. Again, no one seemed surprised to see Orochimaru carrying a tiny cosplayer of himself.

"This is not a discussion," Orochimaru tightened his grip to the point I couldn't wriggled out if my life depended on it.

"Then I want one of you. Please." I clenched the fabric on his back. I could feel him relax a little.

"That is an acceptable condition." We made our way back into the big main chamber. I could watch over his shoulder as we went. We took a left (my right) down a long corridor lit by LEDs and into another room that was empty except for piles of scrolls, parchment, small wood boxes of different colors and tons of calligraphy brushes.

He put me down on the edge of a table. I ran my fingers over the wood. The smooth edges and light wood made my skin look pale enough to pass for blue. My skin hands looked horribly dry and felt dry. "I'm thirsty," I said.

Orochimaru didn't even look up from where he had started rifling through the boxes. "If you require something, ask for it."

"I require water," I scratched at my skin. It felt tight and dry. Probably from my last bath being an over powered jutsu. What I wouldn't give for soap and a good bathtub.

"In a minute," He turned back to me, a bottle of ink and five brushes in his hand. "Take off that ridiculous cape and tug the robes down to expose your back."

I shrugged off the Akatsuki robe and let the white robe slid down a bit on my back. "Can I get one black and red in me cloth?"

I heard his laugh right before he touched my back with the brush. The ink burned on my skin, like being touched with an ice cube or the feeling of holding a hot cup at the hottest part. There was a series of lines drawn on my back before a bunch of lines around the area of the circle and what felt like a thumbprint on my back. A couple seconds after the thumbprint, there was a strong searing sensation that made me gasp before it faded to nothing. I pulled the robes back up and turned around carefully.

Orochimaru loosened his clothes sufficiently that he could pull one arm out without exposing himself and then he bent his arm like rubber and started to write on his own back. After a moment, he turned his head back around to watch what he was writing. it was the most disgusting thing I had ever seen what the flying fuck.

"That's so gross," I said delightedly, trying to figure out where his boney bit stopped and the rubber insanity began.

He turned his head back the right way but left his arm bent the wrong way to ask, "Where would you like me to put your reciprocal seal?"

I thought about it and decided to go for easily hidden and saccharine. "Over heart, please."

His expression didn't change but at least I could pretend he found it touching. He drew a series of kanji over his heart and left a circular space at the bottom. "Bite your thumb and smear the blood here."

I made a face. I don't know how anyone keeps cutting their thumbs with their teeth. it seems A) gross, and B) a super fast way to lose a thumb. "Help please?"

He passed me a kunai from god knows where and I pricked my thumb on the point. It took a couple attempts to get blood to come out. I pressed it in place and tried not to squeak when I felt a felt of energy flow right out of my body along a channel in my arm.

"Now your tracking seal."

I left my robes loose and the front and tried not to squirm when he used his smallest brushes to make the tiny strokes over my chest. Once he placed the last stroke I felt the same searing burning sensation and suddenly my brain knew exactly where he was. Kind of like, when you walk into a room and put the keys down by the door, you can turn around and sort of just feel on the back of your neck that those keys are by the door? That was what this tracking seal was like. I knew, beyond a doubt, where Orochimaru was like I had set him there even while I was looking right at him.

"I require water," I said.

He rolled his eyes. "Come along."

We went back out and through another set of doors into another lab. This one had lab equipment and canisters lining the walls, with a huge wide open space in the center of the room. The floor was tiled with a few drains scattered around the room. One of the drains had an ominous red puddle.

"Hn. I'll need to speak with janitorial." Orochimaru grumbled. "Now, do as I do." Orochimaru shifted his position on the floor near the puddle. I took a few steps in and stood there.

"Hold your arms out as I do and move your feet." I shuffled a little in place and tried to make sure I had it right. Orochimaru rolled his eyes again and came over to adjust my arms. "Is this taijutsu?" I asked.

"Not the way you're doing it."

We spent the rest of the day with me trying to learn one single kata and Orochimaru making despairing comments and nudging me into the proper place. When finished going through it once, Orochimaru showed me where the mugs were for drinking out of the faucet. Then he showed me where the ration bars were and asked me to keep doing in the rest of the day while he took care of some business. If I needed the restroom, there was a tiny room with a sink, a toilet, and a chemical shower all squeezed into the same one meter by one meter room.

I kept practicing the same moves while he went through piles of paperwork and making his own commentary in the margins. People ducked in and out, only one at a time, taking swath of paper or leaving new documents for him to review. Every once in a while he would get up to nudge my arms back into position but we went through the day like that and we went back to his quarters at the end of it.

Back in the private quarters, I poked around a bit but Orochimaru just handed me a set of pajamas four sizes too big. I changed behind the folding screen and came out to the bed. it was unmade the way we left it. When I peeked into the main room of the quarters, Orochimaru was sprawled in an armchair, reading a scroll thin enough for me to just make out the ink characters through the back.

"Where do I sleep?" I asked.

Orochimaru looked at me like I was an idiot. "The bed."

It took a second for me to realize he meant the same bed from this morning which was probably his bed. "Oh. Okay."

He rolled his eyes but at least he didn't add any biting commentary. I crawled back into the bed and rolled around to get comfortable.

I couldn't help but stay awake thinking. Oh god. I'm in the Hidden Village of Sound, with more missing nin than you can shake a stick at. I have to get stronger. I have to change the events. I have to defeat the person behind this entire mess, Kaguya, who is... the moon?

The only thing left to do was train.

This entire world is insane. I have to kill the moon.


	4. Chapter 4

Waking up went more or less the same as yesterday. Orochimaru on one side and a giant snake coiled on top of us.

I pressed my hands on top of the closest coil and pushed.

Hahahebi let out a sleepy hiss then rearranged herself so her coils slid off me and over Orochimaru.

He stirred in his sleep, turning over so that the tip of his nose peaked out from his hair. ¨Stay in the quarters,¨ he murmured, his voice heavy with sleep. He put his hand toward his face, and hit down over his thumb, then smeared his blood over the edge of the pillow. A cloud of smoke puffed up

Hayai popped into place. He immediately looked around the room suspiciously. "I thought I was in disgrace."

"Go be in disgrace in the study," Orochimaru turned away.

I reach over for Hayai and let him crawl up my arm, then peered at the pillow case. Orochimaru's blood was gone. Huh. I wondered if that was part of the exchange.

"I will give you all my ryou for sleep," Orochimaru whined, words muffled by the pillow.

Geez, okay I get it. You want to sleep. I tugged his blanket a little higher over his head and went off looking for a room with a bath or shower. There was a sliding door tucked just beside a large cotton wall hanging depicting blue stick line arts of people in different positions

Tucked in one corner was a small room with a toilet and sink that had another door hidden within that with a bathtub just big enough for a large man to sit. I flipped the knobs and gave Hayai a minute to crawl off before I climbed in.

I let get the water all the way up all the way to my chin. before I shut it off. It took a minute to open the gills up on my neck, but once they were open, it was like my whole body could relax.

Every muscle went limp and I dozed there until Orochimaru slid the door open. "Come along, Mother. I have a village to run."

It was too early to think about his mommy issues. Hayai dismissed himself while I got dressed.

Orochimaru and I walked out of the apartment and into the laboratory. There was a teenager waiting just outside the door with a clipboard and a Sound headband tied around his arm. His jaw twitched when he looked at me, as though he wanted to say something, then thought better of it.

"You have a meeting this morning with the Master of Sound followed by a curriculum review for the Wave survivors and our youth population. We also need you to review the results from Project Terracotta, Project Pear, Project Carp, etc. Then there's the building plans for the prospective bases of phase two of our village expansion. More importantly, there's a messenger from the Daimyo waiting to speak with the Master of Sound and a message from Rain."

Orochimaru tilted his head in though, his eyes sliding to look at me, then back to the teenager. "Thank you, Hiro. let's start with Ayame-chan. Meanwhile, tell the remainder of project Terracotta to prepare their results for review. I'll go over that before the Aviary. Hiro, this is Wani. She's-" He paused for a moment, thinking, then let out a small huff of laughter. "She's the biological daughter of the ruler of Sound."

Hiro tapped the edge of his clipboard. "The ruler of Sound?" he said, carefully emphasizing the word ruler as he looked to Orochimaru for classification.

Orochimaru made a small sound of amusement. "Did I stutter?"

Hiro gave me a warmer look and reached over the ruffle my hair.

Dude. Not Cool. I tried to dodge his hand but I didn't quite make it.

"Orochimaru was my jounin sensei. It's nice to meet you, Wani-chan." He smiled warmly at me and it made the skin on the back of my neck stand up. There was something just wrong about the way he smiled.

There was flutter from my connection to Orochimaru, like the chakra bond flickered with discomfort. I guess he didn't like it either.

"I'll be overseeing her directly." His arm came around my shoulder tightly and squeezed.

We went out through one of the side doors and went through the narrow corridors into the large, main chamber that had shocked me before. This time we took a wide ramp up a gentle slope. Now that I'd gotten used to the architectural style, I could see there were stencils etched into the walls in between art murals and graffiti.

Orochimaru smiled warmly when he caught me looking at the etchings. "Not everyone here is literate. We use the symbols to help indicate where to go. The badgers are for private apartments. The rabbits are for ninja barracks. The laboratories are snakes - that's where we live."

"Bird are for the children." There's where the term Aviary must have come from.

"It's a bit more subtle. Different demarcations on the creatures as you walk around, a few meaningless animals to lay false trails, and so on. Do you see that bird?" Orochimaru pointed at a fat yellow bird that could have been a sparrow or a Snidget for all I knew. "That's the Usuigu. That leads the way to the Otokage's chambers. Kage's are the leaders of major ninja villages. The smaller villagers refer to their rulers as Masters. Our population is too small for other villages to refer to our leader as a Kage. However our first ruler is strong enough to be a Kage." He winked at me and then laughed, the light hearted ku ku ku sounds echoing in the corridor.

I smiled back. Even if he was a shady guy with ten pounds of crazy in a one pound bag, it was fun being on the inside of a secret. It was starting to seem like Sound had a puppet leader so everyone could pretend Orochimaru wasn't a missing nin in charge. The way the ninja were acting, it seemed like they all knew and didn't care.

The passage became more ornate the farther in we went, until we came to a pair of beautiful gold doors with seals running down in thick vertical purple bars down the front. A pair of ninja were there, covered from head to toe in what I would have sworn was a Hazmat suit.

The Hazmat nin pulled open the doors for us to reveal a large, poorly lit room. The ceiling was entirely made of glass but it was like looking at the sky from underwater. There was a hammock slung along on wall from one of the support beams crossing the ceiling. The opposite wall had a dumbwaiter and a water cooler. Filing cabinets covered the back wall, most of the drawers pulled out to different degrees. There were large, comfortable armchairs scattered around. The center of the room was filled with a large circular wooden desk that curved around one large office chair and the woman sitting in it. As we walked in, she pressed her fingers over a section of the desk. The light fixtures along the walls brightened.

She had long red hair, dark enough to have looked black in the dim lighting, and green eyes that lit up when she looked up at us. The woman raised her hand at the Hazmat nin, rapidly signing something that cause them to close the doors behind up and then make the doors glow a soft, ominous purple.

The minute the doors started gowing, she bowed towards Orochamaru. "It's good to have you back, Orochimaru-chan. How long will you be able to stay?"

Orochimaru bowed back, not an inch deeper than her. "It's good to see you, Ayame-chan. Unfortunately, I'll need to be back in Konoha in three days. I'll be putting our plan into effect earlier than planned. It will take me a couple weeks to tie up loose ends in Konoha but I should be able to return after without a problem."

Ayame nodded and then got up from her desk as she spoke, "And who is this little baby?" Ayame knelt down in front of me and smiled. "You wanna share your name?"

I looked up at Orochimaru, hoping he'd give me a hint as to what to do. His eyebrows were raised. That wasn't helpful.

"I'm Wani." I looked down at Ayame and then back up at Orochimaru. After a long silence he got the hint.

"The leader on Project Carp thought he would be able to ensure his place by creating a hostage." He gave Ayame a look of contempt and commiseration. "Wani is biologically my child. That said, with our current political climate, it would be best if everyone believed her to be your child."

Ayame let out a huff of laughter, "That'll be true soon enough, anyway."

"My main concern is what to do with her while I'm in Konoha. I can't let Danzo know about her and our strongest jounin are two weeks on and off with the Daimyo. The simplest solution would be to send her out to the Daimyo's court with the rest of the jounin and have the jounin rotate guard duty between the Daimyo's family and Wani, but that would leave this base defenseless for two weeks. It's also too early."

"I'm not completely useless. You do remember that, right?" Ayame ruffled my hair and then stood up. "What about if we let the current court jounin stay at court and keep our current set here on Wani-chan?"

Orochimaru turned his head slightly. "Then we only have six jounin in this base and there's no telling if you'll be healthy for the entirely of the time."

Ayame jerked back looking wounded. She moved as if to say something then stopped, her shoulders slumping. "Then temporary fostering is your best option."

"No," said a quiet shaky voice.

The two of them looked down and I realized the shaky voice was me. I shook my head head enough to feel dizzy. "No, no, no, please." I wrapped my hands in the fabric of Orochimaru's clothes and clung as closely as I could. If I was going to be trapped in this world of killers and monsters, then I wanted the best of the best keeping me safe. If anything went wrong in Konoha, he'd be dead and I might as well be.

I had already screwed up the timeline. Maybe if I could convince Orochimaru to run away, we could do something nice like - Farming. We could move to the land of Fruit and Vegetables and just farm cabbage. Nothing bad ever happens there, right?

"Wani-" Orochimaru said, one hand coming down on my head, stroking reassuringly.

"Don't leave me," I murmured, sniffling loudly. I honestly couldn't tell if these mood swings were the result of being a child or being, you know, stranded in a terrifying apocalyptic hellscape for the rest of my life.

Orochimaru slowly crouched down and grabbed my hands in his own. "Wani, I need to leave you alone for a few weeks to make it safe for both of us. I promise I will come back and if you miss me, all you have to do is reach for your seal and you'll be able to feel for me."

I put my hand over the seal and pushed chakra at it until I could feel Orochimaru's chakra telling me he was right next to me and he was irritated.

I wiped the snot and tears off my face with my sleeve. He looked disgusted.

"Sorry. I'll be good."

Orochimaru pulled a piece medical gauze from into his kimono-thing. "Clean up and then practice your taijutsu in the corner. There's more business to see to."

I wiped my face as best I could and then took to the corner. Ayame and Orochimaru continued to discuss arrangements and then projects.

The best I could figure out what that Project Peach had something to do with the curse seal. So far nine out of nine initial test subjects had died so they'd need to revamp the seal array. It took me a while to figure out they were even talking about the curse seal, until Orochimaru said he hadn't had the opportunity to seal the tenth test subject. His apprentice had been left in Wave with a Kage Bushin while he oversaw the dismantling of Project Carp.

That must have been Mitarashi Anko. If she had never been sealed -

Fuck. I was changing the narrative just by existing.

Orochimaru told Ayame to roll out their new version Genin exams to the Project Carp a test group before using it on the rest of the population. I tried to get away with standing still and eavesdropping but orochimaru threatened to send me to the Aviary for the rest of the day if I didn't keep moving.

After that it just got boring. They went through the paperwork on Ayame's desk, with Orochimaru picking out contractors and picking out locations on maps for Sound bases, design schematics, blah blah boring.

It was probably a short discussion but it felt like forever. When the sound of wind chimes went through the room and the room open, I sighed in relief.

The Daimyo's representative was dressed in what I'm assuming are full formal robes. There were probably twelve layers at least but no paint of any kind. Ayame and Orochimaru were both leaning against the large desk when he entered. He didn't seem surprised to see Orochimaru, but he did do a double take when he spotted me moving in the corner.

The representative leaned forward into a deep bow. "Master Uzumaki-sama of Sound, it is a pleasure to see you again."

What the actual fuck. Ayame is an Uzumaki? Wow. With all the other Uzumaki's out there, they must have spread out from Uzugakure like cockroaches.

"Hello Kiyomori. It's good to see you too." She said, giving him the slightest bob of her head in return. "I've reviewed the signed trade agreements and the proposed missions she sent this time. The missions will be assigned out to our shinobi by the end of the week. I'll send runners to the Court with each completion. I have a revised patrol schedule to send back as well. Did you need something else."

He gave Orochimaru side long glance. "May we speak in private?"

Ayame signaled for the guard to close the doors. Once they were sealed again and glowing, Kiyomori looked directly at Orochimaru.

"The Daimyo In All But Name wants additional reassurances that your best shinobi are guarding the Daimyo's heir. She wants permanent placements instead of rotational guards."

Orochimaru smiled. It didn't reach his eyes. "We are a young village," he said kindly. It's sounds kindly, but the killing intent he lets leak out makes the representative jump. "Our Jounin have different specialties. Permanent posts would remove some of Sound's very limited resources. If we didn't have them to take missions, the village might not have enough funds to pay all our shinobi. That would mean hundreds of missing nin right here in the Land of Rice. That would would be terrible, don't you agree? Wani, I will send you to the Aviary if you can't focus."

I hadn't even noticed that I had let my form go to shit. I tucked my elbows back in and tried to keep the movements precise.

Kiyomori had gone pale but he still held his ground. "You have to understand, Orochimaru-sama, The Fire Lord has twelve guardians and eight children to succeed him. The Daimyo In All But Name only has one son. The next closest relative would be the cousin of Lightning's Daimyo."

Orochimaru's expression turned serious. "She's heard of the assassination of the the Daimyo in the Land of Hot Water."

Kiyomori nodded.

"You will not be receiving any permanent shinobi." Orochimaru raised his hand before Kiyomori could launch into another argument. "Instead, you'll receive Sound's heir." He gestured towards me.

Great. I'm a political pawn now.

"She will accompany you back to Court and she can remain there as proof to the other nobles that Sound is providing the best guards. I'll collect her in a few weeks, once the Daimyo In All But Name has been sufficiently reassured."

Kiyomori was silent for a several seconds, expression blank before saying. "That is an acceptable solution."

"Wani, start that kata over and don't think I can't notice when you aren't positioning your feet properly. When you can do it ten times perfectly, we'll move on to a new set of forms."

I nodded and went back to my corner.

Orochimaru took Ayame's seat behind the desk while Ayame and Kiyomori pulled up chairs and started going through another pile of papers in the corner. Jounin rotations, guard shifts, patrol routes. Mostly boring except, it sounded like they were trying to keep the existence of Hidden Sound a secret. The patrol groups were supposed to spy on the patrol routes to track what shinobi from which villages were passing through. Rice had border's with Hot Water, Fire, and some land that that no one inhabited or accurately name. Kiyomori called it the Cursed Lands, Ayame called it the Graveyard and Orochimaru rolled his eyes each time and basically called it that place over there.

Eventually I got tired enough that I took a nap in the hammock. When I woke up from my nap I was on one of the beds in the Aviary. I pulled the pillow out from under my head and screamed into it before using my seal to find Orochimaru.

He felt far. Really far. Not like in another room but far. His chakra felt alert but I didn't sense anything like fear or urgency.

Daisuke was suddenly leaning over me. "Shh, It's okay, Princess. Orochimaru-sama dropped you off while you were sleeping. Why don't you come have lunch with us?"

"He left me," I sniffled and rubbed at my face with my sleeve.

"He'll come back, Princess. Aren't you hungry? We're having udon today." He held his hand out.

I pushed myself off the bottom bunk and took his hand. He'd better be back. He owed me a kata.


End file.
